Hurt
by Anonymous Skrtle
Summary: When Carlos is bullied one day, who will help him feel better? For FootballandBTR's Anti-Bullying Day!


**Hurt**

Boys made a game about everything, and the guys of Big Time Rush were no different. As they were walking home from school, Kendall opened his mouth.

"I'll race you guys back!" He said casually, a smirk on his face. James rolled his eyes. Kendall always thought he could win, and James wanted to prove him wrong today.

"Last one's gonna have to do the dishes tonight!" Logan grinned. Surprisingly, the smart boy was actually a pretty fast runner, and he could run lightning fast if he wanted to. And right now? He wanted to. James, Kendall, and Logan got ready to run.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Carlos called out in protest, trying to tie his shoelaces. But his friends ignored him.

"Ready… Set… GO!" Kendall, James, and Logan ran off, leaving dust and dirt behind. Carlos coughed and spit some dirt out of his face. His friends were so competitive. He was probably going to have to do the dishes… unless he found a short cut.

Carlos started jogging after his friends, his brown eyes darting around to see if there were any backyards he could cut through to get to the Palm Woods. His friends would never know, would they? Carlos could just imagine the looks on their faces when he got home way before any of them did.

The short boy suddenly spotted a little trail that went off the main road. It led into a neighborhood, which led into the Palm Woods. Perfect. Carlos wondered why his friends never saw it. And they called _him_ stupid.

Carlos was about to take off across the road to get to the little trail, but someone's cold hand stopped him. Carlos froze when he heard someone's nasty, cruel voice. A voice that he'd learned to hate and fear with all his soul. "Hey, look who we have here…"

Carlos turned his head around slowly, staring into Earl Wenderton's deep blue eyes. Those eyes seemed to bore into him, freezing every single one of his cells. Carlos stood frozen in shock and fear, not knowing what he could do. Why did his friends have to _run_ home today?

"What are you doing here all alone, huh?" Earl sneered, picking Carlos up by the collar of the Latino's shirt. "Did your friends ditch you?"

Carlos shook his head quickly. "No! We were just racing back home, and I-" Carlos was interrupted when Earl slammed him into the brick wall of someone's house. No one seemed to be living in that house any longer.

Earl raised Carlos until the two were eyelevel. "You are so _stupid_. Your friends hate you. They _ran away_ from you." Carlos looked down, not wanting to meet Earl's eyes.

"And if you guys were really racing, why aren't you with them? You couldn't have been _that_ far behind, huh?" Carlos bit his lip. Earl was right. His friends didn't wait for him before they started running. They didn't need him, right? But maybe they were just getting too involved in the race… his friends wouldn't ditch him… would they?

"My-my friends wouldn't d-do that." Carlos protested, staring into Earl's eyes again. Earl rolled his eyes and laughed at Carlos's words like it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard.

"Your _friends_? They're not your friends! All of them are better off without you!" Earl set Carlos back down onto the ground and dragged him into the backyard of the abandoned house. Carlos tried his hardest to keep from stumbling and falling onto the grass.

"Let me tell you something, okay?" Earl pushed Carlos into another brick wall, covered in bugs and spider webs. Carlos almost thought he felt something crawl into his shoulder. But it was probably just his imagination.

"Your friends don't need you, alright? I mean, just look at Kendall Knight. He's the captain of the freaking _hockey team_! He has all the followers someone's needs in a lifetime. He doesn't need _you_ dragging him down and following him around like a little lost puppy."

Carlos blinked rapidly, trying not to let tears escape from his eyes. Earl was so right. Kendall was admired by so many people, it was hard to count all of them. He didn't need Carlos there. Losing Carlos wouldn't even affect Kendall, would it? But still, Carlos didn't want to believe it.

"Kendall w-wouldn't-" Carlos gasped in pain when Earl stomped on his foot harshly. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain.

"Kendall's probably annoyed of a little burden like you. You think he _wants_ to hang around someone as weak and pathetic as yourself?" Earl smirked when he saw Carlos's eyes fill again. Earl was seriously getting to Carlos, and Carlos didn't know what to do.

"And James. James Diamond. He's handsome and girls would pay money to flirt with him. Almost every single girl in school _loves_ James. And I'd bet girls would pay money to see you getting beat up."

Carlos wiped his eyes furiously. Why was he being such a baby? He wasn't supposed to cry. It would just make Earl feel even more satisfied than he already was. "No they wouldn't!" Carlos protested, his eyes narrowing.

Earl laughed. "Oh, I knew you'd say that, so that's why I asked some of the girls in school if they'd pay to watch you get beat up. _Lots_ of them said yes, but only one could come today." Earl whistled, and a girl seemed to appear out of nowhere like a dog.

"This fellow here," Earl explained, gesturing to the girl, "paid me _ten bucks_ to watch you get beat up." The girl smirked at Carlos.

"We wouldn't' want to disappoint a _girl_, now, would we?" Earl whispered into Carlos's ear. Carlos shuddered. He didn't want to get beat up, and he would do anything to get out of this situation. But it seemed hopeless. His friends were probably miles away now, and no one was probably anywhere close to this abandoned house to help him.

Earl pushed Carlos even harder into the wall, smiling. "You're such a little retard." Carlos didn't even have time to react before Earl drew back his fist and punched Carlos right in the eye. Carlos whimpered, holding his injured face.

He felt another punch in his stomach, and he almost threw up what he'd eaten for lunch that day. Three more punches were aimed at Carlos's face. He felt his cheeks burning from humiliation, fear, and pain. He couldn't take this anymore.

"Stop it! Pl-please, just stop!" Carlos begged Earl uselessly.

Earl laughed. Carlos hated that sound. "No way, Carlos. I got my money, and now I'm going to do what this lady told me to do." He threw Carlos onto the ground and started kicking him in every single place imaginable.

"St-stop it! _P-please!_" Carlos didn't care if he sounded pathetic or weak. He just wanted all the pain to stop.

A few seconds later, all the kicking and punching stopped. Carlos writhed on the ground in pain, whimpering and sobbing. Earl pulled him back up, panting.

"Alright, just one last thing now, okay?" Carlos couldn't even see his face anymore from the blood and tears in his eyes.

"No-no, please no-" Carlos received a punch in his face. He felt his nose cracking, and he screamed in pain.

"Shut up, or you'll get ten times worse. I forgot about Logan. Logan's smart, and you're the dumbest little thing I've ever seen before."

"I bet you don't even know how to spell." Earl spit in Carlos's face, and the younger boy didn't even bother wiping it off. It would hurt too much.

"Do you? Huh?" Earl slammed Carlos into the wall harder than all the times before. The breath was knocked out of Carlos, and he couldn't respond.

Earl sighed. "Well, since you don't seem to wanna answer, I'll teach you how to spell." Carlos almost fainted in fear when Earl pulled a pocketknife out of his pocket.

Carlos backed away from Earl, trying not to completely freak out. Was Earl trying to _kill_ him? With a knife?

"Oh, don't worry, _buddy_. You're not dying anytime soon. But after this, you'll be wanting to." Earl sneered into Carlos's face. Carlos gulped in fear. He wanted his friends to protect him. But what if everything Earl said was right? His friends _were_ all so much better than him, and maybe they _didn't _want to be friends with him anymore. Or else they would've come for him already, right? His friends didn't care about him.

"If I could choose one word to describe you, it would be _loser_. So what's a better way for you to remember that than _this?_" Earl whipped out the pocketknife, moving it closer and closer to Carlos. Carlos flinched away, starting to stumble away from Earl. No, no, no…

"Please don't hurt me… pl-please." Carlos's tears cascaded down his face like a giant waterfall. Earl couldn't do this to him. _No_.

"Aw, it's alright, Carlos. Just come here, and maybe I won't hurt you as much." Carlos refused to take a step closer. He kept on inching back and back.

Suddenly, Earl lunged at him and pushed him onto the ground. Forcing Carlos to lay on his stomach, Earl lifted up Carlos's shirt and put the tip of the knife onto his back.

"Oh gosh! P-Please don't!" Carlos begged. "I-I'll do _anything_!" His voice was so desperate and so scared that Earl seemed to ponder his actions for a moment. But then he seemed to snap out of whatever daze he was in.

"LOSER. L-O-S-E-R. The first letter's L."

Carlos screamed when he felt a sharp stab of pain in his back. The knife went down Carlos's back in a vertical line. Carlos whimpered and tried to move, but Earl held him down firmly.

"Please don't! Ow, ow, p-please just s-stop!" Carlos's vision was already starting to get hazy from the loss of blood from the bleeding and the knife. He felt more stabs of pain as Earl formed the first letter on his back. L for loser.

"First letter done. Ready for the "O", you little loser?" Carlos shook his head wildly.

He was preparing himself for the pain as Earl brought the knife down yet again. But he suddenly heard someone's voice, a voice that seemed miles and miles away. "Hey!"

He didn't have time to recognize it before he blacked out.

_Line line line_

It hadn't taken Kendall, James, and Logan long to see that Carlos wasn't trailing behind them. They quickly sprinted back to where they started the race, looking for Carlos and yelling out his name worriedly.

"What if he just went home another way?" Logan suggested meekly.

Kendall shook his head. "He wouldn't have. And Logan? You were _totally _losing. You're washing the dishes tonight."

Logan rolled his eyes. "Fine. But first we gotta find Carlos first."

James shushed them when he heard a voice a few yards away. "P-please don't!" Carlos. It was Carlos.

And then another voice, deeper and stronger. "L-O-S-E-R. The first letter's L."

The three boys ran over to where the voice was, and practically tripped themselves. Kendall led them to the back of an abandoned house, his eyes looking worried and angry. They found Carlos lying on the grass, and Earl Wenderton, the biggest bully in school, holding a knife to Carlos's back.

"Hey!" Kendall shouted, his voice cold as steel. They saw Earl looking up at them, a smirk on his pale face.

"Hey, it's Kendall Knight and his little cronies. I'm just having a little _fun_ with my best buddy here." Earl seemed to not even notice Kendall's pale face turn red as a tomato from his anger. Kendall took a step forward threateningly, but Earl didn't even flinch.

"Go away." Kendall demanded, stepping closer to Earl.

Earl stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans "And why should I?"

"Well, maybe we'll call the cops on you," James piped up, whipping out his phone angrily. He dialed 911, and before any of them could even blink, he hung up again.

"You guys can't do this!" Earl yelled at them, spit coming out of his mouth. Kendall had pulled his arms back and tied them with some string he found on the ground. James picked up his feet and tied them together, too. Logan stood on the watch, ready to spot the police and lead them to where Earl was.

In a few minutes, the uniformed men arrived, and without any questions, took Earl and threw him into the car. "We'll question more at the station to see what he has to say. Thanks, boys." And then they left. As quickly as that.

Kendall kneeled down and stared worriedly at Carlos. "Carlos…" He didn't know what to say. None of them knew what to say. Carlos was almost beaten to death. What was there to say about something like _that?_

Logan had called Mrs. Knight, and she came with her car. The four boys hopped in, not knowing what to say. Carlos was still unconscious, and wasn't awake when they got home. The boys quickly took Carlos and lay him on the orange couch in 2J. Logan patched Carlos up, cleaning up the blood on his face and shirt, bandaging his injuries, and trying to get him to drink water.

Finally, Carlos stirred, causing all three boys to jump in surprise. Slowly, Carlos opened his eyes, squinting from the pain and the bright lights. "G-guys?"

Logan brushed Carlos's bruised cheek with the back of his hand. "Carlos, buddy. What happened? We were so worried."

Carlos shrugged, refusing to meet any of his friends' eyes. "Earl, he d-dragged me there and beat me u-up and told me th-things that I-I don't really w-wanna think a-about." He admitted shyly. He never could keep anything to himself, anyways.

"Where did he hurt you, buddy?" Kendall demanded.

Carlos shook his head. "Nothing too bad. Just my face… and he… he did something to my back. W-w-with his knife."

James immediately flipped Carlos over, lifting up his shirt. What the three of them saw wasn't a pretty sight. They could barely make out the letter "L" carved into Carlos's back. There was already a scar and dried blood there. But was it even a "L"? Was Earl just carving random lines into Carlos's back? They could tell Carlos didn't want to tell them anything about it.

Kendall cleared his throat, looking Carlos in the eyes again. "Well, whatever he told you, Carlos, _none_ of it's true, alright? _None of it_."

James and Logan nodded. "We love you more than anything, and nothing stupid_ Earl_ says is gonna change that." James added. He said the word "Earl" with such disgust that Carlos almost smiled. Earl deserved to be hated.

"You're worth it, Carlos. You're our best friend, and we enjoy you for who you are," Logan said, blushing when Carlos beamed at him.

"R-really? You all m-mean everything th-that you said?" Carlos's eyes filled with tears when his friends nodded.

Carlos was crying not because everything hurt, or because of the things Earl had said and done to him. He was crying because he had the best friends in the world. They knew how to comfort Carlos even when they didn't know what was even hurting him in the first place. They knew just what to say. They knew just how to make him feel better. They knew he didn't want to talk about it, and they respected that. They didn't push him for answers. They didn't even ask Carlos about Earl or the bullying at all, because they knew Carlos was a little embarrassed by it. And Carlos loved that about his three best friends.

"G-Guys?" Three faces turned towards him, eyes full of compassion and concern.

"Thanks."

Kendall, James, and Logan grinned at Carlos, pulling him into a group hug, being careful not to hurt Carlos's injuries. And about his back… his friends _did_ want to know what happened with that, but they loved Carlos enough to not force him to tell them. He would open up to them about it someday, sometime, when he felt ready to do so. But now was not the time.

When they pulled out of the hug, all four boys just looked at each other, grinning like mad. A whiff of chicken caught Kendall's nose, and he suddenly remembered something.

"Logan?"

The genius looked at Kendall. "Yeah?"

"You're washing dishes."

**A/N- So… I'm really sorry if that was rushed, but I really worked hard on this! I mean… almost 3000 words? That's insane… well, for ME, but probably not for many of you guys.**

**Whatever. But anyways… what did you think? Bullying is stupid, cruel, disgusting, and NO ONE ON THIS EARTH THAT CALL THEMSELVES HUMANS SHOULD EVER DO SOMETHING LIKE STUPID EARL DID TO CARLOS! Bullying should stop. If you're a bystander, then you should do something to stop it. In my opinion, bystanders are just as guilty as the bullies if they don't do something about it. But if they DO act, then they're heroes. **

**And it took me SO long to come up with a title… and the title's STILL really bad… sigh. I'm usually good at those. **

**This was written for FootballandBTR's Anti-bullying Day (I don't know what it's called) on March 3rd, 2012. **

**Hope you all enjoyed this one shot! Please review! **

**Peace, Love, and Anti-bullying,**

**Anonymous Skrtle **


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